"Monsieur Steiner, you will sit next to me."

With that there came from the anteroom a sound of laughter and
whispering and a burst of merry, chattering voices, which sounded as if
a runaway convent were on the premises. And Labordette appeared, towing
five women in his rear, his boarding school, as Lucy Stewart cruelly
phrased it. There was Gaga, majestic in a blue velvet dress which was
too tight for her, and Caroline Hequet, clad as usual in ribbed black
silk, trimmed with Chantilly lace. Lea de Horn came next, terribly
dressed up, as her wont was, and after her the big Tatan Nene, a
good-humored fair girl with the bosom of a wet nurse, at which people
laughed, and finally little Maria Blond, a young damsel of fifteen, as
thin and vicious as a street child, yet on the high road to success,
owing to her recent first appearance at the Folies. Labordette had
brought the whole collection in a single fly, and they were still
laughing at the way they had been squeezed with Maria Blond on her
knees. But on entering the room they pursed up their lips, and all grew
very conventional as they shook hands and exchanged salutations.
Gaga even affected the infantile and lisped through excess of genteel
deportment. Tatan Nene alone transgressed. They had been telling her as
they came along that six absolutely naked Negroes would serve up Nana's
supper, and she now grew anxious about them and asked to see them.
Labordette called her a goose and besought her to be silent.

"And Bordenave?" asked Fauchery.

"Oh, you may imagine how miserable I am," cried Nana; "he won't be able
to join us."